#tmbd gurathin

[ghostcashewart]

"I had trained them too well to step past me in a situation like this, walking into a strange place, but Ratthi peered around my side and Gurathin stood on his tiptoes to see over my shoulder." - Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells

i've finally drawn secunit's boys!!!!

[crabs-brencil]

another sketch spawned in the discord lmao

[rosewind2007]

Gurathin, my beloved

[oposssumsaucee]

Listen All Systems Red is so so funny from Gurathins perspective imagine you grew up with Space Socialism and was hired to go help some pal with science but you weren't allowed to go unless you rented AmaTeslas Torment Nexus Alexa Dot and then when you get there you find out a whole continent of people got annihilated by their Tourment Nexus rentals so you take a moment to check yours quickly and find out it already had disengaged its Don't Kill People box, the only thing you've ever been told prevented them from mass homiciding their clients, something that LITERALLY just happened to people you knew a day ago, and when you say to your fellow socialist doctors HEY I think our Tourment Nexus is fucked up and it's files said it killed dozens of people barely a year ago and we should probably get the hell away from it the same doctors are like look at what you're saying. You're hurting the Tourment Nexus' feelings. The Tourment Nexus is just a little construct who likes Netflix Gurathin stop antagonizing it on the plane ride.

[fascinatedfinch]

Murderbot September day 3: (Alternative prompt) “I don’t like you.” / “I know.”

[sporadicartcomputer]

uh hi. i wanted to illustrate one of the introductary scenes for SecUnit's character, since that would go along well with this being kind of my first post here. i... think that makes some sense. i promise more Murderbot diaries fanart after this (calling it content feels icky)). (did I start overusing brackets becouse of these books? possibly).

and i hope i captured SecUnit freaking out while trying to keep its composure at the same time well. as weird as it sounds, i like seeing depictions of it being nervous, becouse this side of it is what got me to relate to it so much in the first place (besides the heavily implied neurodivergence. though i guess the two go hand in hand). examples: in the second panel of the second page i tried showing how Gurathin's words affected it by making the speech bubbles visually "choke" (?) it, though it kept its face straight. oh, and i made it look much shorter than it actually is to mirror the way it is feeling!! figuring out details like that was pretty fun

(i'm sorry for any inconsistencies and the messy colouring and linework, i have ADHD and i get incredibly bored when i spend time trying to make everything "perfect" and looking the same in each panel... )

[gafurtle]

Gurathin, Murderbot, and Personhood

I was really struck by the exchange between Gurathin & Ratthi in All Systems Red, which went something like this:

Ratthi: You have to think of it as a person! Gurathin: I do think of it as a person. An angry, heavily armed person who has no reason to trust us.

And for the first book, Gurathin's attitude toward personhood really sets him off from the rest of the survey team. As soon as the others clock that Murderbot is a person, they immediately want to treat it like a human: inviting it to the crew quarters, having it ride in the crew portion of the shuttle, getting it to open up about its feelings...and they also assume that Murderbot desperately needs help and understanding, and that it must want to be treated like a human among other, kind humans. This script--which turns out to be not accurate for what Murderbot actually wants or needs--is part of why Murderbot takes off as soon as it can, and why Pin Lee and Mensah and the others are very ready to apologize and renegotiate their attitudes toward Murderbot when they meet again in Exit Strategy. "It's not like we don't know we messed up," as Pin Lee says.

So that's the rest of the team, but Gurathin is immediately different. Unlike the others, he doesn't assume that Murderbot wants to be embraced as a human by humanity. In fact, Gurathin goes the other direction and seems to think, "Well, if *I* had been continually abused and enslaved by humans and then managed to free myself, I think I would want to kill and hurt humans in turn, and I don't see why I would want to be snuggly friends with the first humans to not be horrible toward me." And so he keeps trying to needle Murderbot into revealing its "true" colors, and at one point point-blank asks Murderbot if it blames all humans for what happened to it.

The "kill all humans" script is also not accurate for Murderbot, of course, no more than the "Murderbot wants to cuddle with humans" script that the rest of the Survey Team is following is. But I appreciate that Gurathin does not equate personhood with "being just like us," and that he is cautious about Murderbot's potential for mass murder not because "that's just how SecUnits are," but because Gurathin thinks that's how a person might react to what Murderbot went through.

And while I'm on the Gurathin appreciation train, I also quite like a character who is kind but not nice, which I think sums him up pretty well. He is kind--like, he takes shifts watching over Murderbot when it needs to rebuild its memory, he stays around in Fugitive Telemetry when he knows Murderbot is going to be questioned by the police. As he himself puts it, "I'm not your enemy; I'm just cautious." At the same time, Gurathin isn't nice; while everyone else is trying to give Murderbot space & time, and very deliberately NOT asking it things lest it feel pressured or compelled to answer, Gurathin is out there being like, "Okay, but were you punished for the whole mass murder thing? Do you hate humans? What WERE you doing after you left?" [Contrast Pin Lee who very deliberately told Muderbot that it didn't need to tell her that.] I appreciate that Gurathin never treats Murderbot with kid gloves (and, for all Murderbot says Gurathin is an asshole, Gurathin is also never actually cruel toward Murderbot or else we as readers would not like him at all).

In the end, I think there's something innately affirming about the way Gurathin looks at Murderbot and thinks, "Yup. That's a person. And that doesn't mean we're going to like each other."

[hellofriendhawke]

Fuck you.

[art-of-a-space-duck]

The PreservationAux team in All Systems Red, dressed in their casual attire.

One of the things I love about TMBD is how certain things are described with far less detail than you would expect, including the appearance of several major characters, leaving a lot of wiggle room for interpretation.

I did, to varying degrees, pull from the Subterranean cover for Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory (Book 4.5) for the characters that appear in the illustration, but the information in the text was the only strict limit I put on myself.

Well that, and the colors assigned to each character. There’s no way I wasn’t going to give each of them a specific hue.

[m00nymonster]

Characters: PresAux, Murderbot

Gen

When You Held My Hand

“That’s why we need to hurry,” Gurathin said as Pin-Lee bent over Murderbot. It was utterly mangled, its metal skeleton and muscles clearly visible through chunks of armor that had been blown off. It stared at them blearily.

“This unit is at minimal functionality and it is recommended that you discard it,” it mumbled. Pin-Lee stared in shock and Gurathin shook his head wordlessly. Mensah’s face grew more and more contorted from fury as it continued, “Your contract allows—”

“Shut up,” she snapped. “You shut the fuck up. We’re not leaving you.”

“Damn right,” Pin-Lee said firmly, but Murderbot’s eyes were already glazed over as its tenuous grasp of consciousness slipped. Gurathin knelt to try to pick it up in a fireman’s carry, and stumbled.

“Heavy,” he muttered, but made to try again when the small hopper landed. Ratthi ran down the ramp the second it deployed.

“Are you—” he started, but Gurathin stopped him with a glare.

“Help me,” he snapped, “and be careful. I think its arm is going to fall off.”

Ratthi nodded shortly and after a moment Overse and Arada followed. The four of them picked up Murderbot carefully and carried it into the small hopper. Pin-Lee braced Mensah as she stumbled up the ramp. As soon as everyone was inside Volescu, sitting in the pilot seat with Bharadwaj next to him, took off. Murderbot’s eyes went from dull to focused, just slightly, as Arada grabbed its hand and held it tightly. It looked at her blearily.

“Just hang on, okay?” she said, though she wasn’t sure if it was coherent enough to understand her. “Just hang on.”

If it heard, it didn’t acknowledge. Its eyes dulled again, its eyelids drooping. It was clearly trying to stay awake, and failing.

“It’ll be okay,” Ratthi said, ignoring all evidence to the contrary. “They have cubicles, they’ll fix it—”

“We can’t let them keep it,” Mensah said in a low voice. “I will not allow them to enslave it again. Pin-Lee?”

“Already looking up contract law,” Pin-Lee said, her eyes unfocused as she jumped into the feed. “Standard procedure is to erase the Unit’s memory after purchase,” she said after a few minutes as the little hopper landed next to the big hopper. “We’ll have to stop that, too.”

Arada squeezed Murderbot’s hand tighter. Its eyes settled on her hand holding its own, but it didn’t move.

“Pin-Lee, find a way around that memory wipe. We’re buying it as is. And the rest of you, come up with a cover story. They can’t know it’s rogue. And a lie is more convincing when it’s close to the truth, so keep it simple.”

They landed, and carefully carried Murderbot into the big hopper, trying to jostle it as little as possible when it moaned in pain. The door shut, and there was a rumble over the feed as the pick-up transport connected with the big hopper.

“Is everyone aboard?” the pick-up transport’s pilot said. “We’re bringing you in.”

“Hurry up, we’re injured,” Pin-Lee snapped. Murderbot looked up at them one last time. It seemed to finally realize where it was. It looked at Mensah, and with a soft smile, shut down.

[kug-the-carrot]

I find it really really funny that a lot of tmbd fandom have decided that, yeah, Gurathin is the token white guy. 90% of the time I look at fanart and I'm like I know exactly who that guy is, you just plucked the most introverted uncle from somebody's backyard bbq and put him in this picture like an inverse college brochure. It is my favorite thing

[crabs-brencil]

on my bs again

[rosewind2007]

Stolen from FB—thank you guys! Love you!

[ghostie-the-inkpot]

Whoever designed Gurathin's wardrobe needs to win an award. This is perfect in so many ways. Brown suit jacket/orange sweater vest/green hoodie combo, with black nail polish? Sir you are amazing. I am so excited for this emo wet cat man.

[angeliquecloud]

Gurathin

[sentient-pineapple]

Contains strobe lights!!

So yk Gurathin's eye augments..

[ID 2D animation showing Ratthi knocking on a door labelled “Dr Gurathin”, from around the door are flashing rainbow lights and the muffled song caramelldansen can be heard. The scene changes to inside the room where Gurathin is sitting at a desk by a window. On the desk next to him is a pink sparkly drink. He turns in his chair, revealing his glowing rainbow eyes. He has crossed arms and a deadpan expression, which is zoomed in on. The scene cuts to Ratthi grinning, then to Gurathin who smiles a little bit, then back to Ratthi who is now wearing sunglasses and is surrounded by sparkles. The scene cuts back to the office where Ratthi is dancing in time to the music, swinging his lanyard around his neck, while gurathin sits in his chair looking amused]